1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of safety gear including workplace utility helmets and pertains particularly to methods and apparatus for adapting a welding helmet, also referred to as a welding shield with a controlled lighting system that may be operated in automated fashion.
2. Discussion of the State of the Art
In many industries like manufacturing and construction, welding is a common practice. Welders wear welding helmets, sometimes referred to as welding shields or face shields, during the course of their work. Generally speaking, a welding shield is constructed to pivot about the workers head and typically has two positions. One position is with the shield down during actual welding to protect the workers eyes and face from extreme light from the welding arc and from any debris that could be dislodged during the process. Periodically, the worker must raise the shield so the worker can see the workspace for weld preparation, cleaning, and other tasks performed during the course of welding.
One challenge with welding using so-called welding helmets or shields, is that many workspaces where welding occurs are not sufficiently illuminated. Therefore, extra work must be undertaken to set-up lighting for these areas. The shield lens of a welding shield is typically colored or darkened like sunglasses in order to protect a worker's eye from extreme light flashing that occurs during the process of active arc welding. These lenses are to dark for the user to see the workspace without the light from active welding contributing to errors in the process resulting in poor quality. Self-darkening lenses for welding shields are available that darken only when extreme light is present. However, insufficient lighting still contributes to workspace errors during welding when the shield is lowered and when the shield is raised.
Therefore, what is clearly needed is a protective welding helmet or shield integrated with a lighting system that may be controlled to illuminate the workspace in a focused manner using the welding shield. A shield such as this would eliminate the problems stated above.